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Passworded gatekeeper for websites

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questorfla:
If there is a relatively easy way to do it, does anyone know of a product that works such that it could open various hyperlinks based on the combination of username and password entered.

Currently, I have this arrangement configured on a 'per-site' basis. But what is now desired is a way to handle multiple different accesses via a log-in button such that a user would end up on a specific homepage based on what they entered for a username/password combination.

There would be at least 40 sites that would all be accessed from single central log-in connection.  which would provide no outward guide as to what goes where.  A user would just enter their log-in and password and if that combination matched one on file in the database, they would be redirected to a specific website based on that match.

This is, in my opinion, another one of those "bad ideas" that management comes up with so often.  Currently each user is given the correct web-link to go to when they are given their username and password in the first place.  Mgmt has decided it would be a 'great idea' to add a   "button" to our PUBLIC website to provide access to all those "private sites" for people who had logins and passwords for them.  The problem being that there are 40 different private sites and I would need some way of knowing where to direct any given entry so that they only got into places they should be in and never into those where they shouldn't.

I believe someone got the bright idea that this would run up the numbers on our Stats page for the public site.  But at what cost in loss of security?   I have given up in trying to point this out.

Anyway, I guess a generic front-end gatekeeper program that could be loaded with every distributed combination of log-in/password as they are given out and then be able to redirect the authorized users to the sites they should be in based on the information they enter is what I am looking for.
 
Hope all had a Happy Holidays on the DC Board. :)

,

Shades:
If you run your company website on your premise, it is likely you have a static IP. If you also run a DNS server, you can easily create an unlimited amount of sub-domains. With Linux, Apache webserver and an instance of BIND (DNS) you can relatively easy create:

http://user1.<your company site>.com
http://user2.<your company site>.com
http://user3.<your company site>.com
etc., etc

Each subdomain can have static or dynamically generated content page, tailored for each user. If that sounds like too much hassle maintenance-wise, you could consider using a static page generator, which generates a static page (per user) only when necessary.

Apache (or other web server software) allows you to password protect those static pages on each subdomain. You could use your current on-premise authorization solution to feed Apache with the correct username/password combo. Users logging in on their personal subdomain (something they do not forget that easily) using their credentials provided by your company, should make it rather easy for your users to work remotely.

Another idea is to use OPNsense and pfSense (router/firewall software (both open source, donations welcome)) that comes default with everything you need to run a cyber cafe. It can take authorization from different sources too. And allows for (real-time) monitoring what users are doing once they connect. Normally you use cyber cafe software the other way around, but when using it in opposite direction, it covers most of what management wants.

A VPN server (also part of OPNsense and pfSense) also allows for user-based redirecting to content intended for that particular user.

Easiness will depend greatly on what you already have (on-premise) and how well it can be integrated.

wraith808:
^ That won't scale very well, depending on the size of the company.

Shades:
Nope, it doesn't. From the description I understood that it is limited to around 40, which isn't a too drastically high number...if there aren't much changes in the workforce.

From previous requests I gathered that there is hardly ever IT budget to procure something else than home-made solutions.

wraith808:
One could quite easily make a webservice that did this, i.e. queried the database based on user id/password and redirect them to their own page that had links on it.  I don't know of any out-of-the-box solutions, but I've found that if you give them the solution to their problem, and they balk at the money involved (especially the pittance that would be), then they have to accept that they can't have the solution.

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